Everybody loves science. What parent doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief
when a college-bound son or daughter announces a decision to
study in that field, whether it’s engineering, particle physics, or
computer science?

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Paxson, in Washington, D.C., promoted the continuing value of the humanities to society.

After all, the kid could have concentrated in English.

Which raises the question: what are the humanities worth? President
Christina Paxson bravely offered an answer when she delivered the
keynote address in Washington, D.C., on March 19 at the annual meeting
of the nonprofit advocacy group the National Humanities Alliance.

As Paxson pointed out, the humanities certainly have their enemies. She
named the usual suspects—radio talk show hosts, Republicans—and
observed that good politics can sometimes mean taking potshots at
liberal arts:

“If you happen to be the governor of a larger Southern state,” she
said, “then questioning the humanities, or college in general, can make
for an easy and effective form of populist politics.”

As a result, while federal science funding has remained level, funding
for the National Endowment for the Humanities has been decreasing since
the Reagan years, most recently down $21 million between 2010 and 2012.

“Humanities funding,” Paxson said, “often strikes critics as an
especially muddle-headed form of government spending, which is not made
more palatable by the fact that an education in the humanities so often
turns out to be an education into liberalism.”

But this politicization misrepresents the value of studying the
humanities, she countered. They not only have obvious benefits to such
fields as history, literature, art, drama, music, and area studies, she
said; they are key to understanding and applying our culture’s deepest
values.

Although the humanities’ benefits can’t be easily measured in terms of
GDP or stock market rates, Paxson argued that the humanities often
motivate, and even inspire, innovators whose successes have improved
those measures.

“When I ask any of our business leaders what they valued most during
their years at Brown,” she said, “I am just as likely to hear about an
inspirational professor of classics or religion as a course in
economics, science, or mathematics.”

Paxson offered three strategies for promoting the humanities. First,
she said, it’s up to scholars and higher education administrators to
point out that “in the complex, globalized world we are moving toward,
it will obviously benefit American undergraduates to know something of
other civilizations, past and present. [And] any form of immersion in
literary expression is obviously helpful when we are learning to
communicate and defend our thoughts.”

In addition, she said, those in higher education have a
responsibility to remind society that measuring the immediate benefits
of knowledge is a myopic view.

“We certainly want to know what benefits will accrue from all of the
research and conversations taking place on a lively college campus,”
she said. “But we should be prepared to accept that this value may be
difficult to measure and may not be clear for decades or even
centuries.… Random discoveries can be more important than the ones we
think we are looking for.”

Finally, Paxson argued that, given the rapid pace of change today,
the humanities can help us better understand the innovations arising
with such blinding speed. “We need humanists,” she said, “to help us
understand and respond to the social and ethical dimensions of
technological change.”

That’s where universities like Brown come in. “Universities,” Paxson
argued, “should not merely train students who can survive and prosper
in the world as it is. Instead, we should educate students who change
the world for the better. Our focus should not be only on training
students about the skills needed immediately upon graduation. The value
of those skills will depreciate quickly. Instead, our aim is to invest
in the long-term intellectual, creative, and social capacity of
human beings."